Vesania
by E. Gray
Summary: Following the turmoil caused by Meteor, Cloud becomes violently ill. What is this strange affliction? Stopped writing this when I heard about Advent Children, probably won't continue. Let me know what you think.


"Disquiet"

  
  
She had been staring at it for so long, falling like small gray feathers in the oddest, most silent sift; that it was beginning to look like snow. Actually, she was quite sure that some of it was snow, but for the most part it was dust. Ash and dust and ice alighting as a dove gray conglomerate, which froze into a charcoal filth as it melded on the ground below like strange flakes of amorphous mercury.  
  
In the darkness, she peered in the direction of the clock on the wall, but beyond its vague, moony face she could not discern the hands or numbers, let alone to which numbers the invisible hands were pointing. She assumed it was somewhere around three AM, only because she perceived the inexplicable silence of that hour, but she couldn't be sure. For all she was aware, it could have been noon.  
  
The Planet's final judgment had come, and still everything remained perpetually uncertain. Tifa Lockheart felt as if she had been floating face down in a sea of uncertainty for the last six months and now that she had finally surfaced, gasping and flailing for some hope to keep her afloat, all she found was a mysterious sky dismal with the settling ash of the Meteor's impact. Remembering that brilliant flash and the omniscient roar that shook the heavens around the ship at impact; they were things she would never forget: the moment she knew she was going to die. And yet, she continued breathing now, those final seconds now only blazing memories haunting her insomnia.  
  
Despite Holy's attempts to cushion the screaming comet and Midgar acting as a martyred ground zero, the earth had ruptured up around the falling star in a concentric tidal wave, and though Holy had served to pillow and catch a great deal of the enormous impact, the crash did annihilate the wicked Mako city. It seemed a sort of divine retribution, the inexorable punishment of the Planet on the paramount symbol of the so-called technology that had near killed it. Midgar had not been enough to fully sate the inertia of the impact, and the dust that soared into the sky settled far more slowly that it had taken flight. The sooty darkness blotted out the sun, and there was mass hysteria of the people living beneath the great virginal darkness that, perhaps, the Planet thought it might recreate the primordial blackness of a newborn earth. Holy had not chosen to exterminate the cancer that walked the Planet, at least not directly, but the colorless winter that now gripped near half the globe threatened the same fate.  
  
Tifa squinted briefly through the drawn blinds, then replaced them over the insulated glass window. She knew if they hadn't been airborne when the meteor struck and the shock wave blistered out—and if airships weren't already equipped to handle extreme cold temperatures at high altitudes—and if Cloud hadn't pushed his own encroaching madness aside in order to fight…she knew that all these things were crucial to her being alive this very moment. And she was grateful. But that didn't seem enough. Gratefulness seemed so trite.  
  
It was cold—so cold she could vaguely see her own breath as she exhaled against her folded arms. Taking folds of charcoal wool in her palms, she wrapped the oversized sweater closer to her skin. The sweater belonged to Cloud. It even smelled like him, as she had noticed in undisguised delight when she pulled it over her head earlier. It had that sweetish leather scent, along with the clean, chemical fragrance of what must have been hair gel. It made her smile, and feel infinitely more safe—as if he had given her armor instead of a gray sweater.  
  
His back was to her, and he slept silently for the time being. Often though, she had noticed while half sleeping beside him for the last few hours, he would jerk suddenly and half-wake with a verbal start before lulling himself with the quick conclusions of nightmares. Tifa lay back down on the pile of blankets they were sharing. The Highwind had been equipped for a large air crew, and though there had been enough cots, they had agreed that the canvas beds did not maintain warmth remotely as well as piling a few quilts together. Despite the insulation, the temperature was disturbingly low. Not far away, Red was curled in his heap of blankets beside Vincent—who seemed to be sleeping rather peacefully despite his usual worries. Tifa dimly remembered Cid and Barret having decided to find how far the cold darkness extended once the visibility cleared a bit—they must have been in the bridge still. If she'd really bothered to think about it, she could probably remember where Yuffie and Reeve were as well, but she didn't much mind that they weren't there.  
  
Regardless of her exhaustion, sleep seemed an impossibility as long as she was curled beneath the same blanket as Cloud. She turned onto her left side, her back to the covered window, and nestled back in against him. The several quilts beneath formed to her hip, her right arm curling around his waist as if it had done so every night for years. She lay very still, as if she had dropped right to sleep, just in case he disagreed with this new intimacy. Even if he did, she would pretend to be plagued with cold and exhaustion and cling to him like clothes to skin in a rain shower.  
  
She listened to him breathe, felt his back rise against her chest and then sink back once more. His bare arms were cold to the touch, in spite of the thick pair of blankets that she'd wound around them like the silks of an autumn cocoon. Cloud, in his sleep, grunted and jerked, inhaling as sharply as if something had injured him when he half sat up.  
  
"Tifa?"  
  
The woman desperately pretended she had not heard, that she was sleeping so deep not even his voice could rouse her. Had it been her touch to awaken him so violently?  
  
"Hey, Tifa?" His voice was low, nearly a whisper, his words atypically fragile. When she failed to respond, he rolled to face her, tangling himself further in the white and green cotton web. He protested against the sudden confinement of his legs in the tangles of their cotton- batted chrysalis feebly before returning his quiet attention to the sleeping woman. She watched him through her eyelashes, how he laid his head back against the material and sighed, the disquieting glow of his eyes visible even in the darkness as they skimmed over her silently as if debating whether what he had to say was important enough to wake her. He slipped an arm around her back and tugged her gently against him, holding her instead of speaking to her.  
  
He must have been thinking about what had happened the night before, when they were alone—waiting for everyone to find their reason for fighting. Perhaps she had worried no one would return, even Barret. If they hadn't, she wondered, would they still have gone on? Tifa tightened her arms around Cloud. She knew he would have gone. Regardless, no one could blame either of them for what they'd done—after all, there was still the horrendous shadow of death hovering over them. What could she call it? A celebration of being alive? She knew it was more than that, it had felt like so much more than that.  
  
"Tifa, you awake?" His mouth was near her ear, she felt the vague wind of his words glide against it.  
  
She shivered briefly, nestling her head against his shoulder. "Mmm."  
  
He didn't respond, merely shifted against her. She ran her fingertips over his exposed left shoulder before tugging the blanket over it.  
  
"It's snowing." She murmured.  
  
"Snowing?"  
  
She chuckled thickly in her false veil of exhaustion. "Cold."  
  
Cloud propped himself up on his right elbow, looking around the room. He still sounded tired. "It's 4:30."  
  
"AM or PM?" Tifa rolled onto her back to face him properly.  
  
In the ambiguous shadow, Cloud Strife shrugged. His hair fell over his face, and he raked it back, squinting around. "Where is everybody?"  
  
Tifa closed her eyes again, "If they're not here, I don't know. The bridge, I guess."  
  
Cloud's arm began to slip away, his cool fingertips sliding across the dry, almost prickly warmth of the gray sweater that Tifa filled beside him, across the long chocolate cinnamon rope of her hair. Was he leaving? Why was he leaving? She sat up, lacing her fingers in his hair, bringing her lips against his in the dark.  
  
He leaned back into her, slowly melting into her like some warm liquid. He kissed her like a man tasting wine, then like a man gulping water after years stranded in the desert. All at once Tifa found herself trembling, despite the warm rush that prickled over her skin. She ran her hand up his back, where the thick leather straps of his armor usually crossed his scapulae and latched onto the heavy steel shoulder guard. The heavy torso guard was also missing, the bolted gauntlets, the steel guard from his left shoulder—all in a pile near the makeshift bed of heavy Shinra manufactured blankets. Half of what they'd stripped from the cots—there must have been at least twenty. She felt as if she was engulfed in some warm, safe cloud up in heaven—with a vague realization that she had not been completely happy like this for quite a long time. Odd how she always seemed to associate the words 'cloud' and 'safe'.  
  
It was over all too soon—Cloud's mouth lifted from hers and hovered silently. He hadn't hesitated like this last time.  
  
He spoke, just loud enough for her to hear. She felt his lips move against hers, felt his warm breath brush against her cheeks as he hovered above her, his weight held on his right elbow.  
  
"Listen, Tifa…about…"  
  
"About last night?" She finished his thought as none of the trepidation that seemed to hinder him.  
  
"Yeah…Uh…" His words expressed downright guilt. "I just…I wanted to apologize…"  
  
Apologize? Cloud? This was both alarming and disappointing. He was sorry about it?  
  
She hesitated now as well, something cold threading around her stomach. "Why?"  
  
"Why? Uh, well, just…looking back on it…I don't know. I thought you would have…wanted it to happen differently."  
  
"You mean not just because we were going to die the next day?" There was a measure of acid in her words. She felt Cloud draw back another inch. "Was that all it was?"  
  
Another inch. "No. I didn't mean…that's exactly what I didn't want you to think. That's not all it was…"  
  
"So it was just-in-case? Just in case we didn't get another chance?" At least, that's the way she had thought of it. That if they'd had no chance of dying the next day, it would still happen…just perhaps not that night.  
  
Cloud was quiet. "Maybe it was."  
  
Maybe?  
  
Tifa returned his silence, beginning to turn away slightly. "Well, I guess it's your prerogative, isn't it?" She knew her voice sounded weak. She suddenly felt weak—"You knew I wouldn't protest. Then why the hell not, huh?" She felt the muscles in her jaw grow tight.  
  
His hand gripped her arm, preventing her from rolling further away, his voice sounding a bit louder and less apologetic. "Hey, that's not what I meant at all. If I thought you were gonna take it like that I wouldn't have said anything."  
  
She glared in the darkness. "Oh, if you thought I'd be upset that you feel guilty for fucking me because you were going to die—you wouldn't have apologized?"  
  
"Jesus, what is it with you? You know that's not what I mean. I'm trying to tell you I'm sorry that it might have felt like that for you." His care about keeping his voice down was beginning to fade.  
  
"Well, you don't have to apologize for it. I get it. I didn't complain, did I?" She turned toward the window sourly, against his grip.  
  
"Tifa…"  
  
"Forget it." She interrupted. Hearing any more would only twist that cold thread winding around her heart harder and harder until it cut her completely in half. She willed back the hot, wet blear that was rising in her eyes. She hadn't cried for years before he had showed up, she wouldn't let him make her cry more than the once he already had. If this cold darkness was going to kill her, she didn't want to spend the last hours of her life crying over a man's insensitivity. "And if Aeris had been there…"  
  
Cloud's hand slipped away from her arm. "What did you say?" His voice was so cold that she winced.  
  
"You heard what I said."  
  
Cloud stared. "Is that what you think? Is that why you're acting like this?"  
  
The tear escaped. Godammit. Was that why? Was it? Maybe. Yes. She had never thought Cloud had something going on with Aeris, not until after she died. She knew he felt guilty. She knew he felt it was his fault for getting her involved in the first place, because he was Sephiroth's puppet. Because he was too confused about everything to know what to do about it. But she had to be involved. It would have happened anyway. The Turks would have found her—perhaps she would never have even had the chance to call Holy. She'd had the white materia. He knew she was linked to this fate as deeply as he was. Of course he'd think about her. But she'd never had the notion he was in love with Aeris. Although admittedly, Aeris had been in love with Cloud.  
  
Perhaps that was where she grew worried. She held her voice steady, despite the stream of tears that rolled silently. "Acting like what? Angry? Why should I be angry that you're sorry you slept with me?"  
  
"I didn't fucking say that!" he hissed. "Tifa, you don't understand."  
  
****  
  
God, this was making his head hurt. Everything had been going pretty well, why did he have to fuck it up? Actually, his head had been throbbing for hours now—this was just making him notice it again. Ordinarily he wouldn't have mentioned the entire incident in the first place—just because he wasn't sure exactly how to put across the idea he'd wished that the experience could have been somehow nicer. What he wanted to assure her was that he hadn't merely been satisfying the tension between them because of the great chance their lives would end the next morning—he hadn't intended that. He'd thought she knew how he felt about her—hell, he'd told her about how he very nearly worshipped her when they were kids, hadn't he? He was sure he had, though he suddenly couldn't recall when. Those memories of his childhood were what ensured his existence—those things that no clone could have known. If he'd been a clone of Sephiroth that had hatched an identity from Tifa Lockheart's memories, he wouldn't have remembered the things only Cloud Strife knew. Only Cloud Strife knew how much he'd longed just for her to look at him. Following her up Mt. Nibel and taking the blame for her injuries. He'd only been a kid, no more than 13, but he so clearly recalled watching her lay so still in that bed—sure that if she died he'd just die along with her. Fade into the shadows for destroying the one beautiful thing he'd ever seen—like a picking a flower in the snow. Only Cloud Strife knew the sting of failing the SOLDIER exam and coming back to his hometown in a Shinra uniform instead of a hero's armor. The shame of watching Tifa through like visor of his blue helmet—more beautiful than he'd ever seen her and too ashamed to let her know he was there at all. And her blood on the floor of the reactor…  
  
Those memories were coming back so much more clearly now, all the small details filling in like a camera focusing. Fragments were filling in—even the time between the burning of Nibelheim and his meeting Tifa in Midgar in Sector Seven, five years later…  
  
The feeling of floating, the inertia oozing through his limbs, the heavy oxygen mask that held his aching neck in a perpetual arch upward. The throbbing in his joints. The strange endlessness of it. How each black out marked another hour, another day—creating numb shadows between each vague recollection the way sleep creates separations between days in the endless bright space of time. The hazed, indistinguishable thoughts he'd had while watching the demented shapes through the warbled surface of the tube—the slightly viscous fluid staining each half-conscious image that familiarly terrible chartreuse.  
  
Dim images surfaced in his mind, like dark fish in dirty water; like words from a remembered dream. The rare moments of complete clarity before another painful, jerking, mindcrushing darkness pounded in were washed away by the nerve-burning agony. The garbled voices. And Zack's body thrashing under the hail of Shinra bullets outside Midgar. Through the semi- catatonia of the endlessly injected agony, he'd taken Zack's sword and ran…  
  
"Cloud?" Tifa was sitting up now, her hands on his back, almost as if attempting to pull him up from the hunch he'd somehow fallen into. He'd not even perceived the paroxysm that had knocked the wind out of him, he'd simply found himself lost in the confusion that he was constantly pushing away.  
  
His hands had caught his face as he dropped forward, now as the fog cleared, he was back in the dark sleeping quarters; in the pile of blankets with Tifa. His hands felt wet against his cheeks, his breath cold.  
  
He stumbled up quickly, the wetness beginning to run through his fingers and patter on the tile below his feet. Dizziness swept past him like hurricane gales, nausea welling up in their wake. He struggled through the gravity of vertigo, the floor reaching up and soaring toward him, praying he wouldn't fall or faint or die before he reached the washroom.  
  
Cloud floundered for the door, found the knob, jerked it open and slammed it barely before he keeled on the floor. His head felt like it was planning to explode as he reached up the wall for the light switch, the floor lurching up at him again when he flicked it on. Was he really so suddenly ill or was the ship lurching about like that? God, he hoped it was the ship, even though he knew for certain it wasn't. The light nearly knocked him out, and he waited on the floor; forehead tilted on the edge of the sink—for the edges of the white washroom to sharpen.  
  
Everything he had touched since coming into the room was red. The side of the door, the light switch, his finger trails up the wall, the inkblot he'd left on the floor. It painted his palms and trailed down his arms in dozens of wet scarlet streamers that still rolled with the hot fluid. The face in the mirror was barely the one he recognized—if he had ever completely recognized it at all. Stripping his half-sodden shirt over his head, he twisted on the tap and washed the blood from his face and hair. It was still dripping from his nose, he tasted it in his mouth. Shuddering again, the floor shifted beneath him as Tifa was calling at the door.


End file.
